North Carolina legislators just passed a wide-ranging bill barring transgender people from bathrooms and locker rooms that do not match the gender on their birth certificates.
What do you think of this? Why?
In “North Carolina to Limit Bathroom Use by Birth Gender,” Dave Philipps writes:
Republicans unanimously supported the bill, while in the Senate, Democrats walked out in protest. “This is a direct affront to equality, civil rights and local autonomy,” the Senate Democratic leader, Dan Blue, said in a statement.
North Carolina’s governor, Pat McCrory, a Republican, signed the bill late Wednesday night.
The session, which was abruptly convened by Republican lawmakers on Tuesday, came in response to an anti-discrimination ordinance approved by the state’s largest city, Charlotte, last month. That ordinance provided protections based on sexual orientation, gender expression and gender identity, including letting transgender people use the public bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, not gender at birth.
… Whether to allow transgender people access to bathrooms based on gender identity has touched off a national debate, and actions in recent weeks had appeared to turn in favor of that access. Earlier this month, South Dakota’s Republican governor vetoed a bill banning access. A similar bill failed in Tennessee this week.
“North Carolina has gone against the trend,” said Sarah Preston, the executive director for the North Carolina office of the American Civil Liberties Union. “And they crafted a bill that was more extreme than others. They specifically left gays, lesbians and the transgender community out of the anti-discrimination policy. They want to make it plain that they think that kind of discrimination is O.K.”
In a February article, “Transgender Students and ‘Bathroom Laws’ in South Dakota and Beyond,” Katie Rogers writes:
The South Dakota Legislature approved a bill this month that would require public school students to use bathrooms and other facilities that correspond to their biological sex, defined in the bill as “a person’s chromosomes and anatomy as identified at birth.”
Under the measure, schools would need to find other accommodations for transgender students, whose gender identity does not correspond with the biological sex they were born with. If the legislation is signed by Dennis Daugaard, the state’s Republican governor, South Dakota will become the first state to enact such a law, and transgender students, their parents and their supporters criticize it as discriminatory.
On the other side of the debate, some schools say allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice could violate the privacy of other students.
“I developed the bill because I don’t want my four daughters to shower with people with male anatomy,” Fred Deutsch, the Republican state representative behind the bill, told The Rapid City Journal.
Students: Read both articles, then tell us:
— Where do you stand on this question? Are you more sympathetic to the argument that it is discriminatory and “an affront to civil rights” not to allow transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice, or do you agree more with those who feel that it would violate the privacy and safety of others? Why?
— Is your answer to this question different when applied to students under 18 at school than applied to, say, adults at work? Why? Are gender-neutral restrooms a good solution?
— Already there is a backlash against the North Carolina law. What effects do you think this might have?
— In general, what are your thoughts on gender identity and how “changeable” it is? The Times asked this question in 2015, and many readers responded. Do you see gender as binary — two distinct genders, one male and one female, with nothing in between — or more as a spectrum?
— What should parents, teachers and fellow students do when young people are experiencing gender dysphoria — that is, feeling strongly that their emotional and psychological identity as male or female is contrary to their gender at birth?
Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. All comments are moderated by Learning Network staff members, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.